Marvel Rivals is a recent spin on the Overwatch family of hero shooters that intends to wrestle all the value it possibly can out of its IP. And I mean, fair play, who doesn't want to get a triple kill as Spiderman? Sorry, Uncle Ben, I need to get this clip for my MLG montage. It's slated to release December 6, so you'll be able to experience both great power and great clip-ability then.
But when, you might ask, will I be able to get flamed for my garbage aiming by Dr Strange himself? That's where I come in. I've beaten him up for being mean to me and taken his time stone, meaning I've been able to translate its exact unlock time into every conceivable time zone (six) for your viewing pleasure.
If you're curious about what we think about it, well, we're sort of torn—our own Elie Gould likes it quite a bit, being our resident Overwatch player, while our beloved online editor thinks it's irreversibly ruined Magneto for him. Which is somehow fitting, like we've got our own Professor X and Magneto duking it out.
When does Marvel Rivals launch?
Marvel Rivals launches at 0:00 UTC, December 6, which means that us unfortunate UK players will have to sacrifice our sleep schedules if we want to play it. It also means that, if you happen to be in PST or EST, you'll get to play it a "day early"—that being, the same time as everyone else, but without having to ruin your REM over it.
Here's the full details for Marvel Rivals' unlock times around the world:
- 4 pm PST on Wednesday, December 5 (Los Angeles)
- 7 pm EST on Wednesday, December 5 (New York)
- 12 pm GMT on Thursday, December 6 (London)
- 1 am CET on Thursday, December 6 (Berlin)
- 11 am AEDT on Thursday, December 6 (Sydney)
- 1 pm NZDT on Thursday, December 6 (Auckland)
As promised in an announcement post on Steam, you'll be able to hop in and play its 33 heroes as soon as the gates open—which are all free, by the way, with the devs planning on making their buck via cosmetics and the like. Fair play, that's a generous roster for a launch like this.
Is there pre-loading for Marvel Rivals?
Yep! You can head on over to Steam right now and pre-load it for free—though you might not need to, depending on your internet speed. It's asking for 47.5 GB of disk space, though the actual download portion is around 37.7 GB on my end, which is teeny-tiny. Though not every internet connection is born equal.
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